The Review of Elective Home Education - Children, Schools and Families Committee Contents

Annex A

COMMENTS OF PROFESSOR EILEEN MUNRO

A1 A pervasive problem in the section on
safeguarding (pp28-34) is that the author wanders between talking
of safeguarding and child protection without keeping a clear distinction
between them. Safeguarding children relates to ensuring that all
children fulfil their potential and covers all aspects of their
welfare, including their education. Child protection refers to
the specific problem of children suffering, or at risk of suffering,
significant harm from abuse or neglect, usually at the hands of
their carers. This means that all the recommendations have some
plausibility in relation to child protection concerns but are
phrased in terms of safeguarding where they seem poorly thought
through and overly intrusive.

A2 One result of this muddled thinking is
that it fails to consider what current good practice already achieves
in child protection. Recommendation 24, for example, wants LAs
to be able to deny home education for safeguarding reasons. This
seems unjustifiable. This could exclude all low income families
since poverty is the single biggest factor harming children's
development. Nor would it be clear how attendance at a school
would counteract the harmful factors. However, if this recommendation
were re-phrased in terms of child protection then current good
practice would already be active in dealing with this. A child
on the CP register, for instance, would have the move to home
education scrutinised and, if it raised concern, either the parents
would be strongly advised against it or legal powers would be
sought to either prevent or supervise such a move.

A3 Recommendation 23 would lead to
considerable intrusion into the privacy of family members and
is poorly thought through. When recommending new data sharing,
one needs to consider the signal to noise ratiohow much
of this data will add value to the practice of the receiver in
safeguarding children and how much will be irrelevant but causing
problems through taking up time that could be better spent. The
author does not appear to have made any estimation of such statistics
but my suspicion is that it would lead to considerably more noise
than signal and, in fact, create risk of harm by obscuring the
few "signals" (of true concern) among a storm of noise
(irrelevant data).

A4 Recommendation 22 that those monitoring
home education should have some knowledge of child maltreatment
and the child protection system is sensible and I am shocked that
it is not already the case. Basic knowledge is necessary although
the staff might then refer on to a more experienced colleague.

A5 Overall, I think this report confuses
two overlapping agendasto promote the welfare of children
and protect them from maltreatment. It also overlooks or underestimates
two current sources of safety for children: the current child
protection system and the importance of community support and
monitoring of home education.